


47 Roses

by theoriginalcheeesecake



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, just hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:11:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoriginalcheeesecake/pseuds/theoriginalcheeesecake
Summary: Caroline gets bitten by a wolf and Klaus has to listen to her hallucinations down the phone. Will he get there in time?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackefaeriequeene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackefaeriequeene/gifts).



> Happy Valentines!

Caroline was running. Faster than she could remember running before. What had begun as a night was so beautiful, had now become a desperate race for her life.

But it was a race she was losing. Snarling, hulking bodies of fur were looming behind her, and she knew there wasn’t anything else left in her to allow her to go faster.  

And all to soon her body was engulfed by her foes, and it was all she could do to not be entirely ripped apart by the razor teeth cutting into her flesh.

When the last wolf, finally had its fill, Caroline was left maimed, and in more agony than she ever remembered being. It took every vestige of strength she could muster to drag her bloody, torn body the long way back to her home, every movement pushing the venom further and further through her veins.

xxx

No one was home.

There was no one to help her, no one to hold her until she got better.

She collapsed on the kitchen floor, unable to move any further, only just reaching her phone.

With every passing ring, she felt herself give up.

“ _Hello_?”

A jolt ran through her, a glimmer of hope. A glimmer that _maybe_ he was already on his way home. Mustering the final remnants of her vitality, she managed to rasp his name, before falling violently into a distorted memory.

“Nik?”

xxx 

Klaus _never_ turned off _that_ phone.

He always had a few at his disposal, lest one have an unfortunate accident with the wall. But that one, that one was special. It had only one number programmed into it. It had a cheery ringtone, of course it did. It was like her. He even let her talk him into having a pink case for it.

It was his solid link to Caroline.

So when it rang that night, Klaus scrambled through his bags to find it.

In typical Caroline fashion, she was calling at a very inconvenient time, he had a few things to attend to before he started home, and he wanted to get them all finished before he left, if only so he could spend the next day entirely wrapped in her.

“Hello?” he answered.

“ _Nik?_ ”

He felt the colour drain from his face, and the stolen blood running through him begin to course, almost painfully, in his veins.

“Caroline, love, where are you?”

The urgency rang loud and clear in his voice, and Caroline was grateful he knew. He heard her rattling breathing through the phone, before her strained answer.

  
“ _I’m sorry Klaus, I didn’t mean… I lost track of time… But I…”_  

“Shh, sweetheart,” he soothed. “Tell me where you are, I’ll be there soon. Are you at home? Or somewhere else?”

“ _I was bitten... Oh god… It hurts, Nik, it hurts.”_

“Caroline,” Klaus said, desperately trying to remain calm. “Are you at home?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she whimpered. “ _But I can’t see properly, Nik. And… mom? Mommy! I missed yo– no mom, don’t. I didn’t mean to. I, no, mom. I tried! I couldn’t find a cure!”_

Klaus flinched, even as he raced toward his car.

“Caroline, love, focus on my voice,” he intoned, trying to get her to focus on his voice rather than the visions of her mother.

“ _But, Nik, mom is here. She’s really here, and she’s–”_

But even before the the end of her sentence, Caroline was barely coherent through coughing, sobs of pain and tears of regret.

“I’m on my way, sweetheart. Hang in there. I won’t let you die.”

“ _Please don’t let me die, Nik. I don’t want to go. I can’t yet. Not like this._ ”

“You won’t, love, I won’t let you down. I promise.”

xxx 

A scream ripped through the phone. Agonised. Emotionally charged. The tinny quality of the speaker making the note even more eerily disturbing in his lonely surroundings.

“ _It hurts,_ ” she kept saying, through thick tears and blinding pain. “ _I can’t, it hurts.”_

Every howl of her fervent chorus maybe his hands tighten on the wheel, his foot press harder on the accelerator, willing the car to go faster, to get to her quicker, as every howl brought her that little bit closer to something he couldn’t cope with.

xxx

Klaus had been driving for hours, listening to Caroline cries of pain. Listening to her relive the darkest moments of her life in graphic detail. But now she had fallen silent, only faint moans from time to time. It was far more disturbing than the screams.

He really couldn’t fathom the injustice of what was happening. That day was supposed to be very different. He had it all planned out.

“Caroline, sweetheart. Can you still hear me?”

There was a tiny murmur affirmation, and it calmed him slightly to know she was still a bit responsive.

“You have to hold on, my love. Tomorrow is our anniversary, after all.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Klaus willed the car to go faster.

“I was going to surprise you. I was going to arrive home right as it ticked over from February 13th, to February 14th. I was going to swoop in and sweep you from your feet. Carry you to our bed, and place you tenderly on our sheets. We were going to play til the smooth night melted into the bright morning. The kind of morning that only lovers can feel. Don’t you want to be there for that?”

The silence continued, but for the light rasp of her laboured breaths. And tears began to well in his eyes.

“There’s going to be 47 red roses, one to symbolise each year we have been together. I have treats, and present all day, and a candlelit dinner for two. Don’t you want that too?”

“ _You promised.”_

Her reply was so quiet that had the silence been disturbed by anything else he would have missed it.

“ _You promised me I wouldn’t die.”_

His heart clenched and he barely noticed how close to home he was.

“Caroline, sweetheart, love, I will be there. I am only 15 minutes away. Please. Hang on.”

“ _I loved you, Klaus. And you let me down.”_

The tears that had been threatening to fall for hours now, began to slide rivers down his face.

“No, Caroline. I won’t let you down. I’m coming. I’m almost home.”

“ _Klaus_?”

Her voice crackled.

“Yes, love.”

“ _I –”_

But before she could finish, she gasped. A bone tingling gasp that could mean nothing else. Through the phone, he could her her convulse, before one final rattle snaked through it.

“Caroline?” He yelled. “Caroline!”

xxx

It was minutes later when he got to his home.

He stood in the entrance to the kitchen, gazing down as the bloodied, mangled body of _his_ Caroline. There was no way to process.

He had stared death in the eyes more times than he had years on the earth, and Caroline had the same look in her eyes that night. But it was so different, and more powerful than any other time.

“Caroline…” he whispered. “Please… love.”

He crumpled to the floor, crawling to cradle her lolling head in his lap. Caressing her lifeless body with the tender touches of a lover.

“I’m here, love.”

He bit into his wrist, and put it to her mouth.

But she didn’t suck.

“Caroline, sweetheart, you have to drink.”

But there was not a twitch from any part of her ashen, ruined body.

“Caroline!”

A new voice joined the scene, but Klaus didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“Caroline! I heard there was a wolf attack in the woods earlier. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Or my dolt of a brother will have my head for not taking better care of you!”

Klaus heard the woman rummage around the house, opening doors, looking for signs.

“Caroline!” she said with a sing-song voice. “I’m bored and want to…”

“I had 47 roses for her, Bekah,” Klaus gulped, as he saw his sister silhouette the doorway, a look of shock covering her face. “Why won’t she wake up? Why can’t she… won’t she drink… she has to be okay… I promised her. I have  _47 roses._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentines again! Even if there wasn't such a happy ending for our boy Klaus...


End file.
